


The Isles of the Blessed

by Verecunda



Category: The Eagle of the Ninth - Rosemary Sutcliff, The Eagle | The Eagle of the Ninth - All Media Types
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-05-16 04:02:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19310230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verecunda/pseuds/Verecunda
Summary: North of the Wall, Marcus made peace with his father's spirit. Now, south of the Wall once more, it is for Esca to do the same.





	The Isles of the Blessed

It was on their third day after departing Borcovicus, on the road south, that Esca made up his mind to speak.

“Marcus,” he said, “I know it is your wish to press on for Eburacum, but I would ask a favour of you first.”

They had stopped to rest in a little wood of birches, shimmering yellow and silver in the full of autumn, and were now preparing to take once more to the road. Marcus, who when Esca spoke had been saddling his own mount, stopped in his task, hands poised about the saddle-straps, and smiled.

“I’m sure I will be very happy to grant any favour you care to ask of me, old friend. What is it?”

Esca drew a breath. “This is the country of my own people - of my own clan, as it was. There is a place not far from here that it is in my heart to see again.”

Marcus’ curiosity was shrewd in his face. “You said nothing of this when we came this way in the spring.”

“Then we had our hunting before us. Now that the hunting is done, this is the right time to speak of it.”

He said the words gravely enough, and some of this same solemnity seemed to pass from him to Marcus, for his dark brows drew together in a little frown to look at him. Only for a heartbeat, then it cleared and his smile returned, brightly white in the wind-burnt brown of his face.

“The Eagle has been from Eburacum these twelve years,” he said. “I am sure it can wait another day or two. Do you lead the way, Esca.”

They finished saddling the horses, and Marcus looked to Esca to guide them. He took them away from the broad white spear-thrust of the Roman road and struck out eastwards across the countryside, following the routes of his own people, the old ways that followed the lines of the land: curving up over the crests of the hills, winding between the scattered farmsteads, and struggling over the bristling, dun-coloured swells of moorland that rose between them. Here and there their paths crossed that of a shepherd leading a flock of shaggy, fleet-footed sheep, a rangy old hound loping at his heels, and they nodded greetings as they passed; but other than that, they were paid no mind. Esca had spent the whole summer garbed after the custom of his own people here of the north, while Marcus still wore the dress of Demetrius of Alexandria which, nearly ruined though it was, was so different to the usual Roman dress that he could go his way without suspicion.

It had been a long time since Esca had been in the place of his own clan, and to see it again smote his heart in a way he had not foreseen: a keen, yearning mingling of joy and sorrow. Here in the north, far from the villas and basilicas of the Romanised south, the farmsteads continued as they always had: clusters of round, wattle-walled houses crouching beneath their heavy thatch, their enclosures full of lean pigs and hairy goats, peopled by tribesmen who still wore their hair long and proudly bore the blue markings of the Brigantes. As they went on, Esca’s heart leapt, catching at every sight that brought with it some unexpected memory of his old life.

Yet, though a stranger might look upon this country and think that it had never seen any change, still Esca sensed the difference in it. The scars left by the razings and saltings of the Legionaries had healed upon the surface, but the wounds still reached deep, in some way that could not be seen with the eyes, but which he now felt keenly in his heart.

On he led them, through this land where he had been bred, finding his way by the familiar marks: now a hill that rose just so against the sky, its sides cloaked in rowan; now a white, swift-tumbling stream that gushed forth from the rocks and rushed, chuckling, through the meadows. Still further on, until at last they came to the place he sought, where the river made a broad loop to the east, shining in the high golden afternoon. Here the ground grew soft and darkly spiked with clusters of reeds, and the road gave onto a causeway of logs that struck out for the escarpment that thrust sharply up within the loop of the river.

Even from here, the shape of the broken ramparts upon its crest could clearly be seen. It was a place that Esca had seen only in his dreams since he had been sold south, and they none of the best kind, and the seeing of it once more was a sudden cold plunge in his stomach.

So far Marcus had spoken very seldom, content to let Esca guide the way. Now he spoke, in the soft, careful tones of one who already half suspects the answer to the question he is asking: “What place is this?”

Without taking his eyes from the ruined fort, Esca answered, “This was once the strong place of my clan. Here it was we made our last stand against the Legionaries, and where they defeated us.” He did not say the rest, that it was where his father and mother, and his brothers, had died, and where he had been taken. These things Marcus already understood, and besides, the words to say them were like lead upon his tongue.

As they followed the causeway, it grew clear to Esca that few people could have come back here since that last night, for the timbers, once strong and well-kept, had been left to grow green and slick with river-slime, and in several places the wood itself had grown soft as a sponge, so that they must take care where they put their feet, and where they let the ponies tread.

The causeway made a broad arc towards the western face of the hill, for its other three were enclosed by the curving arms of the river, and their sides fell sheer to the water’s edge. It was on the west that the rampart had been the strongest, and where was the fort’s one narrow gateway, empty now. After a short climb they came to the crest, and there were the ramparts right before them, upon which the burnt timbers of the old breastwork stabbed, broken and black, against the blue of the sky.

At the sight of this that Esca came suddenly to a stop, checked by the memory of how he had stood there at his father’s side, there just upon the right hand of the gate, and watched the Legionaries massing on the plain below, where the ground was solid. As the sun died in the west it had made their armour and sword-points gleam with a bloody light, and as he watched them, he had known for the very first time the sick plunge of fear in his heart, the certainty of defeat.

Marcus’ hand came to rest lightly on his shoulder. “You needn’t go any further if it is not your wish to do so.”

Esca turned to meet his gaze - dark, unwavering, and full of kindness - and wondered at him, he who had faced the truth of his father’s Legion, who had borne it with the same quiet strength that had seen him through much sickness and hardship, and who had only been spurred by it to go on and bring back the Eagle to his own people.

He shook his head. “I have come this far. I would be ashamed to falter now.”

But for all that, the fear of shame was simmering within him, strange and sickly, and he was glad for Marcus’ presence at his side as they passed through the ruined gate and into the fort.

The silence within those old turf ramparts was deeper and softer than was to be found enclosed by any square Roman walls. There was no sound of birdsong, though they had heard the plover and the water-fowl calling as they came up the hill; and even the voice of the wind had fallen to a hush, here on the very crest of the hill. In Esca’s mind, they might have passed from one world into another, as the heroes did in the old songs, when the barrow-mouths yawned open on Samhain night. And perhaps this was not so far off the mark of truth, for this, too, was a place of the dead, and for a moment he felt the same chill upon his heart that he had felt in the ruins of Trinomontium.

The Legionaries had been thorough: apart from the fired breastwork, there was little enough left remaining of the buildings that had stood within. The Wild had already begun to make its creeping way back over the hill, and what foundations remained were now not much more than a series of formless little mounds, green with the thin young turf. Here and there, a hole showed where some fox or badger had tried to scratch out a home for itself, but even these stood open and abandoned.

It was this desolation that smote Esca’s heart the hardest, even more than the memories that now crowded in upon him of that last night: memories of blood and sword and flame; the hard set of his mother’s mouth as she knelt before his father to receive the sword; the eyes of his younger brother, wide and scared still in his dead face. The rains had long ago washed away all trace of the blood; the winds had long ago carried away the reek of the burning; and the living of both sides had long ago borne away their dead. There was nothing left to say that any of it had happened at all, and it made the rising grief all the sharper. His memories seemed all at once too fragile for being carried in his heart alone, and he found himself envying Marcus that bundle he carried, that battered lump of metal, for it at least was a thing that could be seen and touched, so that the past, and all those who were gone with it, might be brought almost within reach again.

While Marcus waited at the gate, holding the reins of both ponies, Esca searched among the soft overgrown foundations, and stood once more in the shadow of the rampart, letting the wave of memories lap at him. At last, with a sigh, he sat down upon one of the mounds, and heard Marcus’ feet, light upon the grass-softened cobbles of the old court. He glanced up, a wry smile flickering at the edge of his mouth, and said, “I had thought I wished only to see the place once more, before we go south again and the stone walls of Roman Calleva come about me once more.”

Marcus did not smile, and the frown now between his brows was soft, wrinkling the god-brand there. “What else was there?”

Esca shrugged. “Perhaps I was thinking to find some trace of them once more, as if these old walls might still hold some echo of their voices. But it was a foolish thought. My clan was no Ninth Hispana, who marched into the mist and out of the knowledge of those who loved them. Here the bearers of the blue war-shield fought and died with all honour, and it is West of the Sunset they have gone now, far beyond the cares of this world. What need have they to haunt this place still?”

“There is no way back through the Waters of Lethe.” So Guern the Hunter had said to Marcus, when they had parted from him at the last. Esca did not fully understand the Roman ways of the dead, what routes their souls must take when this life was done, but this he thought he understood. In the songs of his own people, after Bran had sailed to the Isles of the Blessed, he returned once more to the shores of his homeland, but so long had he been gone in mortal years, that when one of his sailors leapt ashore, at the first touch of his foot upon the sand he crumbled to dust and was gone for ever. The truth was the same. When once the old world has been left behind, there is no returning to it. He had thought this was something he already knew, but only now did he understand it, truly, in his heart.

But he was glad at least to have seen the place once more, and satisfied himself that there was nothing more for him here. There was now only Marcus — Marcus, as small and brown and bright-eyed as a sparrow — looking at him with a soft, and a rather sad and uncertain smile. Marcus who, though he had once been of the Legions, was now as dear and vital to Esca’s heart as had been the kin and the life he had lost here. 

The proof of that was in the bundle that Marcus carried. Often he’d had cause to wonder what his father must think of him, first that he should suffer himself to be taken as a slave, then afterwards, that he should give help to a Roman to recover such a prize from the tribes of their own blood. Had his life continued on its old course, he would never have wished it so. But the gods had seen fit to pluck both he and Marcus from the lives they had thought to lead, and put them side by side upon the same road, and from there, there had been nothing in his heart but to go with him, to help Marcus keep faith with his father’s spirit. That had been enough for Esca, but sometimes a doubt would creep into his secret heart, the question of whether it was a meet thing for Cunoval’s son.

He had been half afraid that when he came to this place, that doubt would return, and he would feel shame for his part in it all. But he felt nothing of that now, only a steady calm, and a certainty that his father would understand, were he here to see it done.

At last, he stood. “Let’s go.”

“Are you sure?” said Marcus. “We can stay as long as you wish.”

“I have done,” said Esca. “It is enough to have come one more time.”

There was much that was bad in his past, and much of it had happened here, but as he had once said to Marcus, so long ago it seemed now, it was best to remember the good times instead, and hold them in his heart always.

Marcus nodded his assent, and they led the ponies once more through the gateway and out of the circle of the ramparts. They descended the slope in silence, and retraced their steps along the causeway as it returned to the water’s edge. Here, Esca stopped once more. Hearing him, Marcus, who had gone ahead, turned and looked a question at him.

“Wait,” he said. Reaching inside his tunic, he drew out a slender knife - the same that his father had given him when he was a New Spear, the same that he had laid down at Marcus’ side when he had pledged his loyalty to him. Marcus had given it back to him the same night that he had given him his manumission. It was a thing that had borne witness to all the bonds of kinship and loyalty, past and present, that he honoured in his heart. As he cradled it in his hands, watching the race of the sunlight across the blade, it seemed as if all those things had become infused in the very metal of it, as copper and tin blend to become bronze.

It was not the custom of the Brigantes to build altars, in stone or in turf. Instead, he gazed down at the blade — then, in one swift movement, brought it down and bent it across his knee. That done, he threw it into the very deepest part of the water. It glimmered once, catching the last ray of sunlight to penetrate the deep, and then was gone.

“The light of Lugh go with you always,” he murmured in his own language. He stood, feeling light, as one might when one throws off a heavy winter cloak at the beginning of true spring, then laid a hand on Marcus’ arm, and smiled.

“Now I am ready. Let’s go.”


End file.
